The part chassis of a "plug in"
coil wireless was spotted at a dealers - interest
aroused - but then it turned out to be a customer's
property and not for sale.These "plug in " coils first
appeared in 1922.

None the less, interest had been aroused,
but there was little chance of finding another original set like
it, so a different approach was tried..........

From a mid 1920`s copy of "Brown Bros
Radio receiving sets and components" a likely set was chosen-
an Edison Bell "GEM".

Philip Knighton`s shop in Wellington was raided
for suitable components--what could be accomplished was constrained
by what was available. The result is the "New Gem"
which bears a fair resemblance to the original.

A particular feature was that the valve holder
pin sockets were moulded directly into the base panel (courtesy
of some Araldite). Loudspeaker results were remarkably good particularly
so after a friend pointed out that the tuning capacitor lead
had been inadvertently connected to the wrong side of the detector
grid capacitor.The swinging coil reaction operated differently
from the original in being a "rotary swing," whilst
the original was a "sliding swing" A filament rheostat
was included, though a bit superfluous with a stabilised 2 volt
supply. It was surprising how crudely made the rheostat was -
real cottage industry.

The tuning condenser is unusual in that it
gives continuous 360 degrees rotation. The frame of the condenser
is joined to it`s fixed vanes, the moving vanes being the `live`
ones. The moving vanes are semi-circular and follow a linear
law

The intervalve transformer had to be turned
on it`s side to get a reasonable cabinet height